Pattern exploration in the dataset

Trend of direct or indirect involvement of countries in conflicts worldwide

As expected, more and more countries are getting involved in conflicts indirectly by being a foreign power providing support to the primary warring parties. On the other hand, the number of countries involved in direct conflicts has more or less stayed the same.

We can roughly divide the conflicts into 3 types: 1. Countries fighting against each other. (Country1 and Country2 are main belligerents) 2. Country fighting to gain territory. 3. Country fighting aginst an organization to take control of governance.

We will perform detailed analysis for each of the above 3 categories.

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Now let’s create a dataframe to capture the above numbers.

##   attack_for_territory attack_on_country attack_for_governance
## 1                   55                14                    58

1. Countries fighting against each other

From the barplot above, we can clearly see that US invasion of Iraq in 2003 had the maximum number of external supporters (45) followed by Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991 and Iran-Iraq war in 1980.

a) Ethiopia-Somalia war: We will try to understand different countries that provide support to the two sides over the years of the conflict.

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The Ogaden War or Ethiopia-Somalia war is a classic example of the Cold War tensions between the two blocks of the world- Allied and Axis powers [32]. The war took place between 1977 to 1980 and were supported by Soviet Union (Russia), Cuba and East Germany on the Ethiopian side and USA through its Arab allies on the Somalian side. This gives us a clear indication of the proxy wars that the two world superpowers involved in investing heavily in training, weapons, military and logistics support [33]. The war ended with Somalian defeat.

b) Iran- Iraq war

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Iraq invaded Iran in 1980, just the year after the Islamic Revolution had overthrown the pro-West Shah of Iran and converted Iran into a theocracy. With the exception of Libya and Syria, entire support was for the Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Interestingly this happened during the peak of Cold War and USA (and allies) and Soviet Union (and allies) both supported Iraq. This was due to Iran’s slogan of “neither East nor West”. With active sale of arms to Iraq, both the superpowers could not accept the downfall of Saddam’s regime and hence provided full support for the same [34,35].

c) Iraq invasion of Kuwait (1990, leading to the start of the Gulf War)

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By the time the Iran–Iraq War ended, Iraq was not in a financial position to repay the US$14 billion it borrowed from Kuwait to finance its war. Inability to repay the debt to Kuwait, Iraq decided to invade Kuwait in 1990 which culminated in a decisive Iraqi victory with Kuwait being declared as the 19th province of Iraq. This led to the start of the Gulf War which involved a US led coalition of 31 countries attacking the Iraqi forces backed only by Yemen and Palestine. In an interesting turn of events, the US led coalition which had supported Iraq in Iran-Iraq war turned offensive against Saddam Hussein’s regime during the Gulf War[36].

d) USA invasion of Iraq (2003)

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The above map shows the support USA had in its invasion of Iraq in 2003. The entire world was involved in this War on Terror.

By the above analysis, it can be seen that the world has pretty much been involved in fight for oil reserves. This is one of the major reasons that Middle East is such an unstable place.

2. Countries fighting against non government faction for governance in a country.

Afghanistan and Iraq have long been involved in armed conflicts against various terrorist organizations that have their stronghold in the country. [Taliban and ISIS]. Interestingly US has 33 external supporters in its War On Terror which involved support from all of its NATO allies amongst many other countries.

NOTE: In the following scenarios, one of the sides in the conflict is a non government organisation. Because it cannot be attributed to a specific country, I have jittered the latitude and longitude of the country where it is associated and marked it as the location of the non governement faction. This is only for representative purpose and does not aim to serve as the exact location of the faction.

a) Country: Afghanistan

Many organizations have fought the government of Afghanistan to get hold of governance in the country. It must be carefully noted that government here refers to the ruling party of the country - Najibullah government, then the Taliban government and so on.

i) Government of Afghanistan - Harakat-i Inqilab-i Islami-yi Afghanistan

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Government of Afghanistan (Communist) : Red

Harakat-i Inqilab-i Islami-yi Afghanistan : Blue

As can be seen in the maps plotted above, the Communist government of Afghanistan was fully supported by Soviet Union which invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Understandably, the anti-communist Harakat-i Inqilab-i Islami-yi Afghanistan party was backed by US and it’s allies from 1980 to 1988.

ii) Government of Afghanistan - Hizb-i Islami-yi Afghanistan

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Government of Afghanistan (Communist): Red

Hizb-i Islami-yi Afghanistan: Blue

The conflict between communist Afganistan government and anti-communist Hizb-i Islami-yi Afghanistan organization is another grim reminder of the Cold War between USA and USSR. USSR backed the Najibullah led communist government till its downfall in 1991.

iii) Government of Afghanistan - Taleban

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Government of Afghanistan: Red

Taleban: Blue

Ever since the establishment of the Taleban in the mid nineties, Pakistan has been it’s staunch supporter, providing training, weapons, personnel and intelligence support via ISI (Intelligence agency of Pakistan). Pakistan, Saudi Arabis and UAE were the only 3 countries which recognized Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan when it came to power in 1996. The Taliban government ruled Afghanistan from 1996 till 2001 when US led coalition invaded Afghanistan and toppled the Taleban government. Interestingly, we can see that Taleban has found an unlikely ally in Shia majority Iran. By providing limited support to the Taliban, Iran is hitting two birds with one stone: creating a buffer against ISIS and preventing the United States from using Afghanistan as a base against Iran [37].

iv) Government of Afghanistan - UIFSA (The Northern Alliance or United Islamic Front for Salvation of Afghanistan)

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Government of Afghanistan(Taleban) : Red

UIFSA : Blue

Note: Here government is that of the Taliban [1996-2001].

UIFSA was a coalition of militias seeking to topple the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Throughout its course, Taliban was supported by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia amongst other Sunni majority Arab countries until 1999 when Saudi Arabia withdrew support to Taliban [40].

b) USA (Invasion of Afghanistan to capture Osama bin Laden and topple the Taleban government)

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USA: Red

Al-Qaeda: Blue

After the September 11, 2001 attacks in USA by al-Qaeda, US with its allies declared War on Terror and invaded Afghanistan.

3. Countries fighting to control territory

From the barplot above, we can see that Ethiopia-Somalia war [1977-1978] over the disputed territory of Ogaden had 19 foreign powers. The power struggle represented the proxy war scene during the Cold War. It can also be clearly seen that Africa and Middle East regions have the maximum number of external forces involved in wars.

a) Israel (Palestine)

i) Government of Israel against Fatah.

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United States has been a staunch supporter of Israel in its fight against Fatah.

ii) Government of Israel against Hamas

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Hamas has always been supported by Iran and Syria whereas Israel is supported by United States.

Fatah and Hamas have been fighting against Zionist occupation of Israel and have been demanding establishment of Palestine. However there are some differences in the ideologies of the two organisations which makes them fight against each other as well [41].

Number of external countries getting involved in a conflict increasing with time

Clearly in 1991 [Gulf War] and 2003 [Invasion of Iraq] there are peaks. Many countries worldwide were involved in armed conflicts. There is a general upwards trend which indicates that countries are increasingly getting involved in wars as foreign powers trying to serve their own purpose.

Whenever an external power gets involved in an armed conflict, it might provide some of the many possible aids to the side it chooses to partner with. This might include: Troop support, military support, allowing access to territory, providing weapons, material and logistics support amongst many other types of support.

Yearwise trend of different countries involved as external supporters

From the above line plot it can be clearly seen that the number of countries providing aid in terms of sending troops to fight in a foreign land on behalf of the warring party and training in a foreign country has seen a significant jump in 2004. This can be due to Invasion of Iraq in 2003 in which a number of NATO allied countries provided support.

There was a time of increased weapon, logistics and funding support in the years from 1977 to 1991 which coincides with the duration of Cold War. During this time, a number of proxy wars were fought throughout the world and hence increased external support.

Which countries have provided different kinds of supports throughout the years under consideration?

1) Troops

Russia has provided its troops in maximum number of conflicts worldwide from 1975 to 2009.

2) Military support

USA has provided its military support in maximum number of conflicts worldwide from 1975 to 2009.

3) Territory

As expected the countries close to the ones that are involved in war can provide the maximum territorial support to the warring parties. From the map above, we can see the maximum support by Sudan.

4) Weapons

United States has been the largest supplier of weapons in conflict worldwide.

5) Material/Logistics support

Clearly USA has been the largest provider of Material and Logistic support in the conflicts worldwide.

6) Intelligence

7) Training support

8) Funding/ Economic support

Let’s see country wide distribution of supports.

USA

As can be seen from the line plot above, USA provided extensive Weapon, Material and training support in various conflicts throughout the world. This further saw an increase in 2001 when US declared war on terror and invaded Iraq and Afghanistan.

Russia

Clearly Russia (Soviet Union) has increased involvement in conflicts throughout the world during the Cold War.

United Kingdom

Analysis using Hypothesis Testing.

H0: Duration of conflict is independent of number of external players present in a conflict.

HA: Duration of conflict depends on number of external players involved.

Performing cursory analysis by plotting scatterplot.

Scatterplot above does not give a clear understanding of whether the 2 variables are independent. Let’s get rid of the datapoints in the above plot that are extreme i.e. points corresponding to conflicts 137, 62, 224, 176 and 226 Let’s perform test of independence.

It can clearly be seen from the graph that the probability of observing something as weird as the data is very very low under the null hypothesis. Hence, we have evidence against the null hypothesis that duration of conflict is independent of number of external players involved in the conflict.

Bibliography

Extra information [Please read]

Please find attached all the data files used for analysis in the report. To run the project place the files in a folder and replace dataDirectory ‘/Users/hardiksahi/Second Term/Stat 847/Project/FinalDataSet847’ with the location of your folder on line 61.
This report is submitted by:

HARDIK SAHI

University of Waterloo

External Support in Armed Conflicts [1975-2009]

Pattern exploration in the dataset

Analysis using Hypothesis Testing.

Bibliography

Extra information [Please read]